The Kaffir does nearly 50 per cent. more work than the Chinese coolie, and Mr. Cresswell has proved that for the actual work of mining it is better to employ a white man than a Kaffir. These are not fanciful deductions, but indisputable facts proved finally and conclusively. For almost two decades now the gold fields of South Africa have been the most potent force in English society, a force more for evil than for good. It is probable that we have lost more money in wars which are the direct result of the gold fever than we have ever made from the gold mines. If we were to estimate the cost of maintaining a large military force in South Africa, the financial effect of the unrest which existed in the pre-war period, the serious effect of the Jameson Raid on the money market, the £250,000,000 that we spent on the war, the millions that we have spent since in the work of repatriation, if we were to compare these figures with the amount of wealth extracted from the Rand, and made a simple profit and loss account, it is highly probable that we should find ourselves very considerably out of pocket. And yet, as if hypnotized by the glamour of gold, we continue to treat the mine owners as if they were some particularly favoured class. We continue to submit to their dictation, which has proved so ruinous in the past, and we deliberately disregard the voices of the whole Empire in their favour. Such a policy is neither good sense nor good business. The introduction of Chinese labour into the Rand on the top of all these grave financial and economical failures cannot be distinguished for a moment from madness. It would seem, indeed, that we were deliberately bent on destroying the Empire for the sake of the Jewish and un-British houses in Johannesburg. "He whom the gods intend to destroy they first make mad," is an ancient proverb, which seems strangely applicable to those gentlemen who are responsible for the management of our vast Empire. They say here in Britain that the stories of gangs of murderers roaming over the Transvaal are so many political fairy-tales, the result of party feeling, the usual bait for the hustings, the stalking-horse to bring into office one set of men and to throw out of office the other. They say that the objection of the British public to Chinese labour is a matter of hypocritical sentiment; that they really have none of those fine ideals which they pretend to; that they have no passion for liberty and freedom and the rights of man. Is not the Chinaman better off than he is in his own country? Such casuistry would justify the beating to death with the knout in this country of a black criminal, because in his own country capital punishment was carried out by the more cruel process of burying him alive in an ant-heap to be eaten by the ants in the heat of the African sun.